Your pet assumes a spiritual state and merges with you. You gain access to your pet's most powerful ability and also spells and abilities that require a pet to work (ex: Bestial Wrath, Intimidation) will work without one as long as you are merged with your pet.

A ranged rogue would be a cool class/ spec. And i don't mean having shuriken throw. I mean a whole new spec that was almost all ranged abilities. Hey they let us still equip ranged weapons for some reason, i will hope. No one can deny it would finally give rogues a spec that felt different from the other 2 - not 3 of the same specs with tiny changes to each. The problem with this kind of spec for a hunter is, I started a new hunter recently to get a feel for the class and in just leveling the first 30 levels or so - they really push the Pet mechanic, it is a big part of hunter - and easily could be called the unique part of hunter (although other classes have pets, none tame them like a hunter). It would be like okay here's a spec of hunter that ignores 50% of what a hunter is. The amount of time and resources Blizz spent on development of how a hunter works. Put in completely new and unique game elements no other class even has, to have people say - yea well I don't like pets all that much - well then If I was Blizz I'd tell you the hunter class is probably not for you.

I like your idea of a type of play - I'm just not sure hunter is the class for it.

People having a hard time letting go of that roleplay idea? In this Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game?
Really? lol

I'm not talking about neglecting lore and such completely, I'm just saying that I have no idea where people got this idea where pet are there to be your partner and nothing else. People are living in their own fairy tale - nothing wrong with that, but how much gameplay would you sacrifice to make them happy?

First-off, I've played Hunter as main since Vanilla. I chose Hunter 'cause I frickin' love archery. I managed to go right through to WotLK without ever using a gun, only ever bows & X-bows (& I wasn't fully happy with X-bows).

I've had many faithful pets along the road and I do love 'em but I don't quite understand the reaction to one of our specs being "petless" as such an abhorrent suggestion.

I think that a "petless" spec could make a lot of sense (and MM would be the obvious choice). I particularly love the suggestion to have a non-combatant critter-type creature that stays with you, grants a damage buff to replace the lost pet damage and grants a pet buff.

My pet does whatever I tell it to. Whether it's tanking a mob that one shots it or constantly being rezzed to be sent in to said mod that one shots it, again.. and again..

If my pet isn't a slave... I don't know what is.

Truly sadistic of you!
But 100% correct...
Our pets are not partners, they dont do what they want to, they do what we order them to do, period, end of discussion.

They do not think and act as they best see fit, they stand beside us when we order them to be passive, they attack when we tell them to assist etc.
(well 99%) of the time, because lets be honest, there are times they just run off and aggro a whole dungeon or just stand and dont attack when ordered too... but thats not them exercising free will as a "partner" would, thats called shitty AI

I find it hilarious that people actually are trying to use the "partner" card... cause taming a animal is different to enslaving it how again?

tamed, tam·ing, tames
1. To make tractable; domesticate.
2. To subdue or curb.

It may be a softer word but lets not get it twisted... its the same damn thing.

I don't care about my pet anymore as I learned how to properly control it, what I want is simply more damage. MM hunter rotation and damage is basically a dumbed down and weaker version of either BM or SV. What does MM have compared to BM or SV? BM has stronger pets and higher burst. SV has stronger arcane shots and stronger damage in general (and better aoe).

What does MM have? Pathetic and boring "Wild Quiver" procs which are so freakishly boring it's unbelievable.

If blizzard ever gives MM the option to have "heightened" senses without a pet (aka "sacrificing" it), I do hope it would be an option though.

I will always and forever support this idea. It would be amazing to not have to worry about a pet just once. Regardless of how well it's controlled they're still huge burdens. I'd be interested to see just how many hunters would jump at the chance to drop their pet for more controllable DPS (just talking about pet pathing... Nothing makes me rage more than my pet taking a huge lap around Megaera's platform for no reason and losing upwards of 10 seconds of uptime on the boss... really cool stuff.) I'd imagine for any spec other than BM this would result in a DPS gain.

It would work as a cooldown as Blizzard wants us to be a pet class so a permanent effect just won't happen. A sort of "tag team" style cooldown since Blizzard wants us to be a pet class would be interesting though.